Art quilts

I've made my first mixed media art quilts recently for a swap I joined. I had planned to do one for quite some while but didn't get round get started.
I made the butterflies out of silk cocoon strippings and silk throwster's waste, I had them laying around for a long time, never quite sure what to do with them. I also worried about the mess factor but as it turned out it wasn't too bad, I didn't dye the computer screen red again... The throwster's waste fibres were a bit more tricky to use but resulted in some lovely thin ethereal paper perfect for floaty butterflies. I also got a chance to finally use the pellon sheets I have had for ages which I used as the batting. That way the art quilt has some weight and strength to itself. For the background I made a simple fabric paper and coloursprays. On it's own it looked rather autumny but once I had added everything together it looked as spring like as I had envisioned it. To round it all up I added a few lines of a poem by Heinrich Heine.

I'm really pleased on how they turned out, they are fairly similar with only minor differences, that way is was easy to send one away. The recipient sounded happy about her little quilt too. Hopefully it brightened her day while it's still gloomy outside most days.

Toothfairies

I saw a lovely tooth fairy pillow on my friend Aleta's blog who found the tutorial for them here. Do check out those two blogs, both worth to while away an hour or two...
After a few hic-ups I managed to make those two pillows, one for big monkey and one for a friend of hers. But then of course I had to make one for my niece and the little monkey. Even though he doesn't have all his teeth yet, so another two had to be made. Meanwhile I have seen a much more suitable tooth fairy pillow for a boy so now I have a little pillow all without a home... I don't know why the wings can't be seen on this picture. They have a lovely set of sparkly and shimmery wings.

More about the hairbands

This is big monkey's hairband turned the other way. I've made some fabric yoyo's to customize them. The yoyo's can be stuck onto a bobby pin and slided onto the hairband. Maybe I make some felt flowers next, I also found a lovely tutorial to make fabric flowers. But I'm running out of fabric, due to my lack of sewing skills I've only ever bought cheap remnants. I've inherited a few pieces from my Mum but I've used all the lovely ones and now all that's left are the drab and solemn pieces. Not really suitable for little monkeys. I think a trip to a fabric store is in order, I have some more things planned that I'd like to sew.
Here are the other two hairbands I made with the fabric yoyo's laying on top. The little rose on the pink hairband was made by a friend in a swap. Looks like it was made for it, doesn't it.

Of course big monkey can't pose for a serious photo for too long. Back to monkeying around.

Oh and the daffodil? That's still bright yellow without a hint of green veins. I might try that some other time again once the daffodils are out in our garden.

more from the Daffodils and a Hairband

The daffodil has now completely opened. Last night a friend told me that if you add food colouring to the water the daffodil will get coloured veins. Sounds fun so I put some green food colour in, which was the only one I had in the cupboards. Then another friend came to look what I was doing there and said, oh, yes we did that at school too. Right, at least it will be fun for big monkey I thought. Except she came in a minute later to say, oh, yes we did that in school... So, I'm the only one who never coloured daffodils? In any case it didn't work. I put the colouring in last night and today it's still lovely and yellow without a hint of a different colour. I feel slightly cheated I have to say, I was looking forward to a funky looking daffodil.

Recently I've started to sew a few simple things like tooth fairy pillows and cuffs. One thing I also made were headbands, now that big monkeys hair is only just about long enough to put it into a ponytail it doesn't stay that way very long. So when I came across this tutorial for a headband I thought that looks easy enough. And it was, even I understood the directions. Apart from a few dizzy moments on my part it came together really quickly and big monkey was rather pleased with it, too. It's reversible which I'm rather proud of. I made some more because monkey cousin will come for a visit soon and she will most certainly need a hairband too.

Daffodils from Wales

On Monday big monkey brought a daffodil bud from a school friend to commemorate St. David's day. St. David is the patron saint of Wales. He killed dragons and proofs that there are Gods according to big monkey, she was absolutely certain about that and that "daviddils" are his flowers. The bud was all green and tightly closed but this morning I noticed little bits of yellow and by afternoon it looked like this


Lots of excitement all round and big monkey had to do a "daviddil" ballet to honor the braveness of the little flower.

Monkey business

Little monkey was very keen to have a fruit smoothie in a carton with a straw aptly named Happy Monkey smoothie. So what does a little monkey do with something like that? Empty it of course. On the floor. But the best place for it must be Daddy's shoes. Why didn't anybody else think of that before? A good lashing of smoothie is exactly what they need. Mummy monkey never learns... what we need is an un-squashable, spill proof drink carton. And not sure Daddy monkey will agree with the new alteration to his shoes...

Sunshine at last

Lovely sunshine today, all day. Little monkey and I decided to head to the park, rattle the gates a bit. What's the fascination of that? He's obsessed. Gate open, squeeze through, gate close, gate open, squeeze through, gate close, gate open... Repeat and repeat. Then repeat some more. It only stoppen when I dragged him to the slide where he now has managed to climb up the wooden ladder with the chain. He doesn't use the chain but climbs up confidently like the little monkey that he is. We were very impressed.

Why is it that toddlers take such a long time to walk anywhere? I know it's all about the experience but all the other little ones are sitting happily in their buggies while mine jumps into every puddle, tries to eat bark, leaves and twigs and visits every front garden. He wants to balance on garden walls, at least today we found a lovely tree trunk to stand on

What a shiny car. Not mine, mine is always in the need of a clean. Well, we made it home eventually, only took about 40 minutes instead of 15...